CryENGINE 3 gives us a glimpse at the future of gaming [video]

Devices like Apple’s iPad have shown the world that huge advances have been made in mobile gaming over the past few years. Featuring the Apple A5X processor with quad-core graphics, the third-generation iPad takes mobile video games to new heights on iOS devices, but technology blogs and the media tend to get a bit carried away in terms of comparisons between console gaming and mobile gaming. Gameplay itself paints an obvious picture, and the numbers do as well; Microsoft’s seven-year-old Xbox 360 console features floating-point performance of 240 Gflops and 500 million triangles while Apple’s brand new iPad is rated at a maximum of 7.2 Gflops and 35 million triangles.

The next-generation Xbox and PlayStation consoles currently being developed by Microsoft and Sony will make the disparity between these two classes of gaming even more vast, adding more fluid animation support and a number of additional enhancements that will make video games more realistic than ever. But even when confined to the capabilities present in today’s home consoles and PCs, new video game engines show us just how amazing gaming will be moving forward.

Ctytek, the lab behind the popular Crysis franchise, recently released the CryENGINE 3 SDK 3.4.0 DX11 update for developers as well as with a quick reel to highlight some of the engine’s capabilities. Along with companies like Epic Games, Crytek continues to push the envelope while enabling other developers to do the same, and this latest release will set the bar even higher. Crytek’s video trailer follows below.